Bible gateway

This section is designed for people who are not familiar with the Catholic faith. It particularly focuses on what Catholics believe about Mary.

Mary's assumption into heaven

In terms of the Hierarchy of Truths whether or not Mary was bodily assumed into Heaven, or not is relatively low on the scale of ‘truths important for salvation’. However, the following Scripture passage shows us a vision of Mary (the new Ark of the Covenant) as being gloriously crowned in Heaven and hints at her Assumption by her sudden appearance in Heaven

(Note the chapter divisions were added years after the Scripture was originally written down by St. John)

Revelation 11:19 'Then God's temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple; and there were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy hail.'

Revelation 12:1 'A great portent appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.'

Revelation 12:2 'She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pangs, in the agony of giving birth.'

Revelation 12:5 'And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron. But her child was snatched away and taken to God and to his throne;

Revelation 12:6 'And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, so that there she can be nourished for one thousand two hundred and sixty days.'

Since God has graced other Scriptural persons by sweeping them off to Heaven to avoid corruption in the grave, how much more would the mortal body of ‘the Woman’, who conceived and carried God Incarnate, the new Ark of the Covenant, also be spared such decay and corruption in the grave?

The grace of suffering no corruption in the grave and of being ‘caught up’ to heaven before death is perfectly Scriptural. Such an assumption into Heaven happened to Enoch:Genesis 5:24 Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him.

It also happened to Elijah:2 Kings 2:11 As they continued walking and talking, a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them, and Elijah ascended in a whirlwind into heaven.

And is also promised for some future Christians:1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 ' For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel's call and with the sound of God's trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord for ever.'

Respect not ConversionIt is not our intention to convert Protestants to believe or agree with Catholic teaching, but to demonstrate and reassure any Protestant reader of the intellectual integrity of the Catholic Church’s interpretation of Holy Scripture, and particularly on these pages, the Catholic understanding of the role of the Virgin Mary – “the handmaid of the Lord “ in God’s plans for mankind.We hope that to demonstrate that each of the respective Catholic beliefs about the Virgin Mary is rooted in the Bible and Christ-centred is a valid biblical interpretation for the Catholic Church to make, which our Protestant brothers and sisters should be able to respect.